Truly Appreciated
by Sand-wolf579
Summary: After their latest mission, Cavendish was beginning to feel under-appreciated. He began to wonder what the point in saving the world was if everybody still just thought of them as throw away jokes. *Spoilers for Where's Milo?*.


**A/N: Hey. I knew I would be writing more for this fandom, but I hadn't expected to do it so soon. But I also hadn't expected how much I would love the new episode...actually, I hadn't expected the episode at all. My entire family watches this show and we only learned that there would be an hour long special the day before it aired. I was so freaking excited, I couldn't stop squealing all day.**

 **So, yeah, I don't own this show. Really, I promise that I'm not Dan or Swampy. Now, let's get this show on the road.**

* * *

What a day.

Honestly, the _one_ time they are actually able to successfully complete a mission, and the world almost gets destroyed by sentient pistachio men. How was that even fair?

Cavendish knew that he should feel relieved that they had fixed the timeline and saved the world. They would no longer have to worry about being ruled over or killed by an insane walking pistachio who was apparently _very_ fond of his family. The thing was, Balthazar did _not_ feel relieved...well, he did, but his feeling of bitterness overwhelmed all other emotions he might be feeling.

Cavendish and Dakota had actually accomplished the mission that had been given to them. They should have been able to move up from pistachio duty and be given _actual_ work. Instead their streak of bad luck continued and the pistachio tree they protected had turned into a living pistachio, bent on world domination. The two of them, with the help of four children, had been able to undo the damage, and nobody even knew it. As far as everybody else at the time travel agency knew, Cavendish and Dakota were still screw ups who were incapable of completing just the simplest of assignments.

It was absolutely infuriating. Cavendish knew that he and Dakota deserved better than this. He knew that they _could_ be good at their job if it weren't for their ridiculously bad luck (or was it because of the 'Murphy's law' thing? Cavendish still didn't entirely understand the jinx). Despite all of their efforts though, Cavendish and Dakota were still the lowest of the low when it came to time travelers. Yes, they had helped to save the world, but nobody believed them. They were still treated with the worst disrespect, so did it truly matter what they had accomplished? They never got anything in return, so what was the point.

"Hey, Cavendish." The man was pulled out of his thoughts and turned towards his partner. "You gonna eat that?" Dakota gestured to the food on Cavendish's plate, which he had barely touched. The older man was slightly annoyed at the question. Of course his partner was thinking about food.

"No, help yourself." Cavendish pushed the plate of now cold chinese takeout towards Dakota. The younger man barely looked at the food. His eyes were completely on Cavendish.

"Alright, what's going on?" Dakota asked. "You _always_ eat chinese whenever we get it, but you've barely eaten anything."

"Well, maybe I'm just not in the mood for eating right now." Cavendish said in his usual firm tone that just said ' _Dakota, drop it.'_ As usual though, his partner either didn't understand or completely ignored the message in his tone.

"Why wouldn't you be?" Dakota asked, as though he honestly didn't understand. The young man grinned and leaned back in his chair. "We just saved the world. That's a cause for celebration, not moping around like a bitter old man."

Cavendish scowled and crossed his arms. "Well, excuse me for not jumping for joy. Need I remind you that we _still_ ended up failing the mission?"

Dakota's grin slipped away and he frowned slightly in confusion. "Yeah, because we needed to save the world." Dakota reminded him. "I kinda think that's slightly more important."

"Yes, of course _you_ would." Cavendish scoffed. "You think that a hamburger or a visit to the zoo is more important than our assignments." Dakota's frown deepened and Cavendish could see a slightly hurt look in his eyes. Mostly though, the younger man just looked confused, and also determined.

"Are you telling me that you would have rather completed the mission than save the world from killer pistachios?" Dakota raised a disbelieving eyebrow. Cavendish shrank back slightly in his seat, a slight blush of embarrassment came to his cheeks. Well, when one puts it like _that…_

"No, that is not what I'm saying." Cavendish said. " _Of course_ saving the world is more important than our assignments, but...but have you stopped to wonder just what the point of all of this is?"

"Eh, not really." Dakota shrugged and took a large bite of an egg roll. "...The point of _what_?" Cavendish sighed at his partner's question. He should have known that Dakota wouldn't have understood.

"The point in _all_ of it." Cavendish said. "We completed our mission, but then had to take it all back to fix the timeline. We saved the world, but we're still nobodies at the bureau. Don't you just ever feel like nothing we do has a point?"

"..." Dakota was silent. He obviously didn't know what to say to that, and for a moment Cavendish felt victorious. Maybe his partner had finally realized what he was talking about. Maybe he too would see how pointless their efforts had become, that they hadn't really accomplished anything.

Cavendish waited for Dakota to think things through and come up with something to say. When his partner spoke though, he said something that Cavendish hadn't been expecting at all.

"Why did you become a time traveler?" Dakota asked. Cavendish was the one who was stunned silent at this question. Dakota took advantage of this silence to ask another question. "Was it because you wanted to be famous?"

"What?" Cavendish had no idea where that question had come from. "Of course not." _Nobody_ became famous through time travel. Very few people were actually aware that time travel was a thing, so it was impossible to become famous that way. Half of the agents only went by code names, so even other agents wouldn't be aware of who they were. And even if an agent accomplished something impressive with time travel, half the time nobody who wasn't involved was even aware of the changes made. It was all but impossible to even get recognition for doing something through time travel, yet alone get famous for it.

"So, why did you become a time traveler?" Dakota repeated his question.

"You know why." Cavendish said, because he was positive that he had mentioned it before. "I wanted to save the world."

"And we did." Dakota grinned.

"Yes, but nobody _knows_ that." Cavendish groaned. "We're still on useless pistachio duty."

"So?" Dakota shrugged. "That doesn't change what we did, does it?"

"Well, no, I suppose not." Cavendish admitted reluctantly. "But is it really that much to ask to get some appreciation around here?"

"...I guess not." Dakota said quietly. He looked down at Cavendish's plate of food and finished eating the eggroll. Cavendish could tell that his thoughts weren't on the food, but on their conversation. A part of Cavendish was relieved to have finally gotten those thoughts off of his chest. Another part of him just felt guilty for burdening his partner with his own personal issues.

Unsure of what else to do Cavendish excused himself from the table and went to go write up the report of their latest mission. He normally did this the second they returned home from an assignment. That day though, Cavendish had been procrastinating. It just tore him up inside that he needed to write up the report just like all of the others, and explain exactly _why_ they had failed. It just wasn't fair, because they _hadn't_ failed at first. The only reason that they had technically failed their assignment was because they had tried so hard to make it so, to save the world.

It didn't matter though, because Mr. Block wouldn't know the difference. This mission report would be the same as any others. Just an excuse to laugh at Cavendish and Dakota, the worst time travelers in history. It didn't matter that they had saved the world, because they had failed their assignment, and a failure was a failure, no matter the reason behind it.

As Cavendish wrote out the report he heard Dakota rummaging around through the apartment. It sounded as though he was looking for something, though Cavendish didn't have the slightest idea what it was. After a few moments the noise quieted down, so either Dakota had found what he had been looking for, or he had given up.

Cavendish stared at the report for about a half an hour as he tried to figure out any other way to word what had happened to the pistachio tree in the end. There wasn't. A dog had peed on it. There really wasn't a respectable way of saying that. Finally Cavendish sighed and set the report down. There was nothing else he could do with it.

On the bright side, at least Mr. Block and everybody else at the agency already thought so little of them that this particular failure wouldn't ruin their reputations much more.

On that cheerful note Cavendish made his way back into the kitchen. Dakota wasn't there, so Cavendish guessed that he must have headed off to bed, because the only rooms in their small apartment was the kitchen, a small and absolutely filthy bathroom that flooded every other week, a single bedroom that fit just one bed, and a front/living room. Since Dakota wasn't in the kitchen, and he hadn't been in the front room, as that had been where Cavendish had been, there really weren't many other places where he could be.

Dakota had left the dirty dishes from their late dinner on the table. Of course he did. He _always_ did. Cavendish sighed and brought the dishes to the sink. Their dishwasher didn't work, it had been broken from the day they had moved in, so all of their dishes had to be washed by hand. It wasn't a difficult task, but it certainly got tedious. Especially since Dakota always came up with one excuse or another to avoid washing the dishes.

It didn't take too long to wash the dishes though, and after setting them out to dry Cavendish made his way to the bedroom. It was still fairly early, but he was utterly exhausted. It had been a rather long day. Cavendish entered the small bedroom and shook his head fondly at the sight he found.

Dakota was fast asleep, as Cavendish had half expected. The younger man had likely been as tired as Cavendish felt, because he hadn't even changed out of his day clothes. He was even wearing his shoes. Dakota lay on his stomach, sleeping in the wrong direction. His feet were at the head of the bed, and his head was where his feet _should_ go. Dakota was half sleeping on, half cuddling with his pillow. It was an amusing sight.

Cavendish took off his jacket and hung it up in the closet. He took off his glasses and put them on the nightstand next to the bed, but froze when he felt his hand come in contact with something ceramic. In the little natural light that came through the window Cavendish could see that it was a mug, but he had no idea what it was doing there.

Curious, Cavendish turned on the old lamp that sat on the nightstand. Dakota muttered and rolled over at the sudden light, but he continued sleeping. Cavendish's attention turned to the mug, which he instantly recognized as one of Dakota's time anchors.

An occasional effect of time travel was a loss of memory. It mostly happened after large time leaps, and became less frequent the more one time travelled. Still, as a general rule, all time travelers were required to have two or three 'anchors', or items that held sentimental value to them. If a memory lapse did occur then the anchor was supposed to help one remember the important events in their life that were tied to the object, and the other memories were usually quick to follow.

Cavendish knew that this specific anchor was something that Dakota had made as a child. It was a sloppily made mug that said **_World's Best Dad_** on it. He had made it for father's day the year before his father had unexpectedly died. The mug wasn't well made, but it meant a lot to Dakota. Hence why it was an anchor.

Cavendish wondered what the mug was doing out when it was supposed to be stored in a safe place. Before he could consider the strangeness for very long Cavendish noticed a note underneath the mug, and he recognized Dakota's handwriting on it.

Cavendish carefully pulled the note out from under the mug and read it. There wasn't a lot written on it, just a brief sentence or two.

' _Hey, Balthy. You know what this mug means to me, but I feel like you need it a little more than I do right now._

 _Who cares what the boss says? I still think you're pretty incredible.'_

Feeling more confused than ever, Cavendish turned his attention back to the mug and he felt his breath catch in his throat. He hadn't taken a proper look at it before, but now he noticed that there was a change to it. It was clear that Dakota had taken a marker and written on the mug. The word 'Dad' had been crossed out and replaced with three new words. The mug now said _**World's Best**_ _ **Time Traveler/Partner.**_

Cavendish smiled and actual sincere smile, which was not something that he did very often. Leave it to Vinnie Dakota to do something like this. Anchors were supposed to be sacred objects, and Dakota had just given one of his away to Cavendish, simply because he knew that the man was feeling down.

It was a powerful and meaningful gesture that meant much more than Dakota probably realized The younger man had done something that was incredibly taboo in the time travel community, just so Cavendish could feel appreciated.

And it worked.

How could he _not_ feel appreciated when his partner went and did something like this?

Cavendish carefully picked up the mug and just looked at it. He and Dakota had their differences, and Cavendish knew that he didn't appreciate the younger man the way that he should. It was at times like these though that Cavendish realized just how fortunate he was to have Dakota as a partner.

Someday maybe he would figure out how to show Dakota that _he_ was appreciated as well.


End file.
